Woman Admits Abduction Story A Hoax

November 05, 1993|By MATT MURRAY Daily Press

NEWPORT NEWS — A 24-year-old woman who was found bound and gagged in a car along Interstate 64 Thursday told police she had been abducted two days earlier by two men, driven around the area and then left by the highway.

But the woman later admitted her story was an elaborate hoax.

The Hampton woman concocted the wild tale to draw attention away from personal problems, including debts, said State Police spokeswoman Rebecca Feaster.

Feaster declined to name the woman, or to describe the nature of her problems more specifically. Police asked Newport News Commonwealth's Attorney Howard Gwynn to charge her with filing a false report, a misdemeanor, Feaster said.

The woman apparently had stayed with a friend since Tuesday, then drove her car out to the interstate sometime Thursday morning, bound herself with tape and waited for someone to find her, Feaster said.

About noon, Phil Mazzola, a driver for Peninsula Towing Service, stopped by the car, which was on the eastbound shoulder of I-64 near Jefferson Avenue.

Mazzola had seen the blue 1976 Toyota Corolla sitting by the road when he passed going the other way about 20 minutes earlier.

This time, though, he noticed something else: two feet sticking out the open door on the driver's side.

Mazzola pulled over to take a look and found the woman in the back seat, gagged and bound at her hands and feet with duct tape. She was crying.

"I just thought she was sick or something," he said. "I pulled over and approached the vehicle. It surprised me to find her."

Mazzola contacted his dispatcher, who called police. The woman told them the two men had taken off into the woods by the highway, and the police sent two dogs after their scent. The dogs found nothing.

The victim was taken to Riverside Regional Medical Center, where investigators interviewed her. But they found no physical evidence in the car or from a medical exam to support her story, Feaster said. In addition, her story was filled with inconsistencies and lacked detail, Feaster said.